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By Bryan Caplan
Last month, I asked readers for a "Great Reconciliation" of three popular beliefs: 1. Risk mitigation should be directly proportional to risk severity. 2. Medically speaking, COVID is 2-5x as bad as flu. 3. Our COVID mitigation efforts should be much more than 5x our flu mitigation efforts. The most theoretically compelling resolution I've encountered maintains that contra (1), our response to risk should be strongly non-linear. On the surface, this is a plausible story. Consider: How much money...
A group of researchers, spearheaded by Brown University Professor Emily Oster, have created and made available the most comprehensive databaseon schools and Covid case rates for students and staff since the pandemic started. Her data—covering almost 200,000 kids across 47 states from the last two...
Thanks JFA. So even if the IFR were 2.5 times higher, his broader point is clearly wrong. Without measures to prevent Covid, it would be far worse than the flu is in a country where people are being vaccinated. I think that's what Bryan misses. We have flu shots, but there is no vaccine for Covid (yet.) In my view, the death toll would have been more than 20X higher than a typical flu year, without preventive measures for Covid. Maybe 30X higher.
Scott Sumner , October 23, 12:11 am.